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4 tools for creating quality designs to sell on products

There’s always something new trending at Teespring! Inspired by the hottest new design trends, Teespring’s Head of Design, Jared Fowler, has collected his favorite (and free) design tools you can use to create quality designs for your products. You don’t have to break the bank on design software with these free design generators—no previous experience is required!

1) Canva

Canva has a host of features on its website that makes designing for every platform easy. Choose from premade templates, stock photos, cartoon images, shapes, icons, and more when creating a design. Similar to Teespring’s text tool, Canva also has a text generator with over 100 different fonts to choose from. One of the best things about Canva is it’s free and so easy to use—you’ll be creating quality designs in no time!

2) Place-It T-Shirt Designer

Place-It’s T-Shirt Designer has a number of pre-made templates you can customize with text, images, and icons. These templates are super easy to use (video) for those with limited design experience. You can download your design and apply it to any products you like on Teespring. Keep in mind this tool is not free to use, however you can pay $2 per download or purchase a monthly subscription for unlimited design downloads and access to their entire mockup gallery (ideal for creating lifestyle images to use in ad images or when sharing online).

3) Typorama

Typorama makes it easy to create designs on the go. This free iPhone and iPad app works with your own photos, stock photos and background images, or a transparent background the app provides. Typorama allows you to add over 40 different text options, edit colors and shadows, or add filters and overlays to your images. Their transparent background option makes it easy to create slogans and text-based designs. Once you’re finished, you can download their edited images and upload them to Teespring!

4) Pablo by Buffer

Pablo is another free online platform that enables you to create simple, sleek designs. Similar to both Canva and Place-It, Pablo has over 600,000 images users can choose from. From there, you can customize your designs’s size, visual effects, and text. This platform works best for text-only designs.

Design inspiration

If you need more design inspiration, you can check out Jared’s ever-growing Pinterest board for a full collection of different design styles and reference images to get your creative juices flowing.

If you’re still stuck for ideas, we recommend reaching out to your community or target audience for suggestions on what they’d like to see. You can read more about sourcing designs here. We often see the most success with creators who use slogans and catchphrases on their merchandise that resonate with their audience.

Remember, when creating your design files, be sure to stick to our guidelines and best practices to ensure the highest quality print.